1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to decoding apparatuses and related methods, and more particularly, to decoding apparatuses and methods that correct the non-linear effect by adjusting the boundaries of signal regions of a level slicer.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In an optical storage system, such as a conventional optical disc drive (e.g., VCD player or DVD+/−R disc drive), data are decoded from the conventional RF signal retrieved from an optical disc. However, the RF signal may have mismatch problems due to interference caused by the system or the operating environment, such as the pick-up head drift or electronic noise, and which results in nonlinear distortion to the decoded signal so the decoded digital data stream is prone to errors. The conventional decoding operation decodes data by using a Viterbi detector. For example, the U.S. Pat. No. 6,754,160 utilizes a DC offset compensation control scheme to calculate a proper DC level compensation value to control the input value of the Viterbi detector so that the Viterbi detector decodes the data stored on the optical disc based on a best slicing level and not affected by the nonlinear distortion described previously.